


He'll Protect You

by meimentomori



Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novels)
Genre: Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 03:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17717612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meimentomori/pseuds/meimentomori
Summary: Rumor has it someone in the neighborhood has a serial flirting problem.You just never realized how bad it was.





	He'll Protect You

It felt strange to be the center of attention for once.

Strade hadn’t told you he had so many neighbors who were looking forward to his annual barbeque. Let alone, that they’d be so interested to know everything about how the two of you met. The story you had down without a doubt. You’d been lonely one night and stumbled into a bar, where Strade happened to be alone, and the rest was history. Their smiles after were nothing short of ecstatic. Every housewife on the block gathered around you in a buzz of gossip, telling you how they’d never once seen a ring on his finger or someone as perfect for him as you by his side. You thanked them but internally rolled your eyes. It didn’t matter to you how long it took for your boyfriend to propose to you. Or if he ever did at all. All that mattered was that he was in love with you.

That the two of you, together, made each other happy. 

You heard their voices fade around you as you zeroed in on Strade. He’d been standing by the grill nearly all afternoon, taking breaks occasionally to join you at your side to tell everyone just how lucky he was to have found you. He’d laugh at the way you punched his arm playfully after he told them how you’d nearly broken your wrist trying to sting up the streamers that hung from the gutters above the back door of the house. You felt your heart melt a bit as you watched him talking to some man way too overdressed for a backyard barbeque, his eyes crinkled up in that adorable way of his. He waved to you when he caught you staring, your cheeks heating up as you awkwardly waved back. Your shyness only made him laugh more, nudging his elbow into his friend’s chest as he pointed you out to him.

He loved showing you off, to anyone who would give the two of you their full attention. 

“Ugh.” One of the women with bleach-blonde hair wrinkled up her nose in disgust at the site of someone approaching them. You turned back to the group to see what exactly she was so bothered about. “Can’t Henry try to keep it in his pants for one party?”

“Especially with his date around?” Another woman whose hair looked way to thin to be pulled back in as tight of a ponytail as hers was turned to you. “Now, you have to promise us that no matter what Henry says to you, you won’t let him take advantage of you.”

“Strade deserves someone who makes him as happy as you.” The woman by her side agreed. She looked to be the youngest out of them, maybe in her mid-twenties at the most. You didn’t have a clue in the slightest who they were talking about. But, judging by the unanimous annoyance in all of their voices, you weren’t sure you wanted to know. “It’d be a shame for you to be swept away by someone like Henry.”

Your curiosity always won out in the end, though, so you bit back your doubts and asked anyways. “I’m sorry but, who are you talking about?”

All of the women’s voices fell silent instantly. The one who’d first brought him up pointed further back into the yard, where a man was leaning with his back against a tree. In that instant, you felt your stomach drop. So that’s what they’d all meant. He was one of those kinds of men. The ones who hit on the partners of others without a second thought, breaking up marriages and serious relationships. On top of the hearts of the ones he stole away, which you can only assume he cared for about as much as one cared for a toothache. You felt your hands balling up into fists as he made eye contact with you, holding up his beer in some sort of toast. Here’s to another broken relationship, the grin on his lips said as they hid behind their beer can. 

“How many?” You lowered your voice to a whisper as you asked them. You didn’t know why, but you got the feeling that Henry’s hearing was better than anyone knew it to be. “How many marriages has he ended?”

“Five that we know of.” The youngest seemed to have been designated as their voice. Probably because the others wouldn’t be able to keep theirs down even if they tried. “On top of the seven engagements and three serious relationships.”

“And he does it out in the open, at parties like this?”

You could feel yourself wanting to plunge your fingernails into his flesh, but you didn’t feel like getting arrested for attempted murder today. The women nodded a collective, solemn nod, fueling the fiery rage you could feel burning throughout your chest even further. You couldn’t even figure out what ticked you off more. The fact that Henry had seemingly no shame in what he did, or that anyone would even give into him. He was untrustworthy in every sense of the word. With his too gelled back black hair and his ill-fitting band t-shirt, you were surprised anyone even gave him the time of day. Though you’d known quite a few people in your day who’d be attracted to everything that he was. A man who’d once believed that his band would be the best in the country, only to have his reality come crashing down on him, leaving him nothing but an addiction to alcohol in its wake. 

He was exactly the type of person you despised.

You stormed off in his direction, ignoring all of the pleas and fingertips brushing your shoulders as you made your way further into the backyard. He was going to make a move on you. That couldn’t have been more obvious in the way that he sauntered towards you to meet you halfway. Getting a closer look at him, you regretted even deciding to come over here. His eyebrows looked more like caterpillars than they did the facial feature, nose bent in the middle like it’d been broken once before. Served him right if it had, you thought. You’d broken out into a cocky grin without even realizing it, which he took as a sign of flirtation. The way his tongue ran across his chapped top lip nearly made you gag. 

“So your Strade’s newest bitch, yeah?” Even his vulgarity was spot-on with the personality you’d imagined in your head. “What a shame.” He stepped closer to you, his breath overwhelmed with the nauseatingly strong concoction of you could only imagine how many drinks. “I would love to get my hands all over someone as gorgeous as you.”

“We’re a couple, in case nobody told you yet.” You took a step back from him. Arms crossed over your chest, tried to keep yourself from shaking. Confrontation wasn’t something you initiated often, but occasionally, it was worth it. More so, in this case. Every word you fought back at him with, was one word closer to bringing justice to those whose lives he’d ruined. “I’m a lot more to him than someone he can screw without there being feelings behind it.”

“Oh, darling, you didn’t know?” The man took a step forward, setting his beer down on the ping pong table that you’d spent the entire morning trying to set up. All it seemed like it was being used for n “Right before you showed up, Strade was set to be married.” “You wouldn’t even be here right now if she hadn’t walked out on him the day before their wedding.”

Your eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re joking.”

Something about the way he said it made your stomach tie itself up in knots. This didn’t seem like a lie. The insincerity in his attraction to you might’ve been plain as day, but this part seemed to have some truth to it. The longer you thought about it, the more sense it made to you. How desperate the housewives were to keep you away from Henry at all costs. How their husbands would clap Strade on the shoulder whenever he announced it to them, saying how lucky he was to catch someone so lovely. You hadn’t even considered that there might’ve been someone before you. A stranger to you that Strade was trying to fill the emptiness in his heart that night you met with a stranger of his own. That couldn’t have been why he’d seemed to fill up with such a genuine gratitude when he’d met you, was it?

You couldn’t be so sure, now.

“Is everything alright over here?” Strade came up beside you in an instant, right at the moment you needed him to be with you. His arm made its way around your lower back, hand resting on your hip as he pulled you into him. “Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself, sweetheart.”

He kissed your cheek and in that moment, any stress you’d been feeling from the doubt that’d clouded your judgement melted away. What replaced it was a hollowness that you couldn’t quite describe. One that made you want to hide in Strade’s arms and never come out. He looked over at you, always too quick to sense anything off with you, his smile fading slightly as he noticed the way your eyes darted from him to the ground in a rapidity that seemed too anxious to be loving. His hand found his way to yours, squeezing it tight wordlessly. He would take you away from this. You would ask him everything you needed to, once the two of you were inside. That was the one bit of hope that kept your lungs from collapsing in on themselves, even with how hard you were struggling to breathe.

“Well if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be off.” Strade waved a friendly goodbye, but only you knew how wrong it was. The tightness of his lips, the tenseness in his muscles. To anyone else, it would’ve come off as normal, but not to you. He was almost to the point of snapping with how pissed he was, but he wouldn’t. Not with you around. “There are more beers down on the patio, if you want them!” 

You couldn’t even be bothered to listen into the bit of conversation that floated between the two of them as your boyfriend led you back into the house. You didn’t even notice when he slid the back door open then closed behind you. Your consciousness seemed to come back once your body was sure you were inside, where nobody else could see the tears that you felt slide out of your eyes. You turned away from him so he wouldn’t have to look at you. He didn’t bother to pry, merely led you up the stairs to his room, where he let you cry into his shirt for as long as you needed to. His heartbeat was faster than you knew it to be when you were in his arms like this. Stronger, too. Like whatever he’d managed to overhear out there had gotten his blood pumping in a way you’d never known it to before. 

“What did he say to you?” He growled, only to soften his voice once he noticed just how much the harshness of it made you shake. “You can tell me, it’s alright. He’s not here anymore.” He lifted your chin up so you could look at him, blurry through the salt-water that seemed never ending. “I am.”

“Is it true that there was someone before me?” Your voice rose sharply in accusation. Your emotions were running too high right now for you to think to tone it down. Though, you knew he’d understand, after everything you needed to say was said. “Someone that you were going to get married to, the night before we met?”

“No, liebling, no.” He frowned, wiping the tears from your cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt. The fabric turned an even darker green, which didn’t seem to matter to him. “He told you that to make you jealous.” He turned to look out the window at everyone outside. You couldn’t see his face but, judging by how tightly he was holding onto your hand, you didn’t know if you wanted to. “Just say the words, and he’ll never come by here again.”

“You can do that?” 

“Lucky for you, I know that kid has a history of peddling drugs back in college.” He turned to you with a small smile on his lips. He was excited to ruin his life, you could tell. Which only made you more excited to let him. “Saw him make deals a few times right on my front lawn.”

“Tell him while you’re at it to stop fucking everyone, will you?” You nodded towards the window, to wherever he was now. “He deserves whatever hell you can give him.”

Strade chuckled and ruffled your hair, your laughing accompanying his in a bit of what could be described best as heaven. “I’ll make sure he knows.”

You gave him a kiss before you watched him leave your bedroom, finally collapsing onto the bed on your back. You stretched your arms high above your head, pressing them down into the mattress as you felt your shoulders crack. You hated that you still had your doubts about your relationship, but Strade understood. He knew how much he meant to you. He knew you thought that he was better than you deserved, better than you’d ever deserved. But he wouldn’t leave your side because of it. He’d stick by it until you believed every ‘I love you’ he whispered to you before bed. Every kiss he gave you in the morning while you were making breakfast. Every smile you shared when you helped him work on his car, over the grease you both had on your faces.

You fell asleep right then with a smile on your lips, dreaming of all of those little moments and more to come in your future with him.

**Author's Note:**

> i am so sorry i'm not good at writing at all


End file.
